Master's Thesis: Drawing a ___(blank)___

Drawing a (blank) Scott ArchambaultM. Arch. Thesis
University at Buffalo
School of Architecture and Planning
Committee: Annette LeCuyer, Nicholas Bruscia, and Gregory Delaney

How can architectural representation be re-imagined to allow for ambiguity and multiple possible outcomes from a single drawing?

Architectural representation is often concerned with eliminating difference and producing a single built outcome. This eliminates the possibility of an unintended result, making the built result specific only to the drawing. If the performative nature of drawing is instead concerned with providing ambiguity to allow for productive difference, the drawing may become a generator of multiple possible outcomes. Each outcome, then, becomes more situationally specific to the builder, author, context, and drawing while creating a new understanding of authorship within architectural discourse.

7 Comments

Thank you for the interest! There will definitely be more to see in the near future. A follow-up post with the details of the project and findings will be posted closer time to when the thesis is presented (within the next couple of weeks). Definitely keep checking back!

I'd love to hear how Scott would defend this in the real world of lawyers, contracts, and the construction drawing being a binding legal document. Even the Deconstructivists buckled to the weight of standards and single interpretations when reality came knocking at their doors.

I really like this! This reminds me of some of the research I found while working on my master's thesis. Have you ever heard of conceptual design? It relates to the idea of the end product being an ambiguous thing with multiple interpretations. Some of the designers that work like this are Hella Jongerius, Droog Design, Piet Hein Eek, and 5.5 Designers. My project was actually about taking the concepts and history of an existing object and using that, along with the existing material from the object, as raw material for a new interpretation of the object. If you're interested you can view the project at my portfolio book, http://issuu.com/oakhay/docs/stephanie_sodeke_2013_portfolio, or my portfolio website, www.coroflot.com/stephanie_sodeke, which shows my final presentation for the project.

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